The food smoker apparatus according to the present invention is a food and beverage apparatus designed to subject food to an enclosed modified atmosphere using vacuum and compression means for exposing the food to smoke for the purpose of adding smoke flavor to the food. Modern man is no exception to the past when it comes to the desire to utilize the flavor enhancing qualities of the smoke produced by the burning of wood, charcoal or any other vegetable matter used in the process of cooking our food. To this day the techniques for doing this are not very far removed from the techniques used by our earliest ancestors who realized that the smoke from cooking food did actually alter the flavor of the food being prepared; and at some point long ago there came the realization that the more prolonged the exposure of the food being prepared to smoke, the more smoke enhanced the flavor of the food would be.
Until now the most modern contrivances available in our otherwise high tech world for achieving this enhanced smoke flavoring still involved prolonging the exposure of the food to the smoke. Today's most modern smokers may be somewhat easier to use than the wood burning type, but they still require many hours of exposure to the smoke in order to achieve the desired level of flavor enhancement; or the use of chemical or liquid smoke flavorings which require the food to be bathed, soaked or otherwise saturated with the liquid and are widely considered to deliver results quite inferior to the effects of real smoke.
Clearly there is a need in the art for a new food smoker apparatus to provide for an efficient, and very rapid process for utilizing smoke produced from the burning of traditional materials such as wood, charcoal or a variety of vegetable matter to enhance the flavor of a variety of foods and to do so with little or no transfer of heat or heat dried air to the food itself.
Historically the search for a better smoker has been a little like the proverbial search for a better mouse trap as others have attempted to create new and improved methods for the smoking of meat and other food substances.
Some prior inventions have attempted to combine the processes of smoking and cooking food with pressurization being applied either to a fire chamber or a food chamber; for example, Hamilton et all, (U.S. Pat. No. 4,469,020) discloses an apparatus with a smoke generator that would pump smoke into a separate enclosure containing the food being cooked by a heating element.
A shortcoming of the method described by Hamilton is pointed out by Davis Jr. (U.S. Pat. No. 5,368,872). The shortcoming he points out is the necessity of pumping smoke through a compressor, thus fouling the internal components of the compressor over time, and even though a filtration system could protect the compressor, it would also presumably remove much or all of the smoke which is essential to the process of smoking the food.
While the apparatus claimed by Davis Jr. can be seen as an improvement over the apparatus claimed by Hamilton et al, (U.S. Pat. No. 4,469,020), there are still important features in the apparatus described by Davis Jr. that would be limitations to the achievement of efficiency in the use of time and fuel. One such limitation to the invention described by Davis Jr. is that the fire compartment 12 illustrated in his drawings (FIG. 1) requires a specialized door compression device 68 illustrated in his drawing (FIG. 5) operating in conjunction with the door 40 illustrated in (FIG. 2) and the door receiving structure 44 illustrated in (FIG. 3) in order to accommodate the necessity of repeatedly sealing and pressurizing the interior of the fire compartment 12 (FIG. 1) before repeatedly transferring pressurized smoke filled air to the interior of the pressure smoking compartment 14 (FIG. 1), which is in direct thermal communication with the fire compartment 12 (FIG. 1) such that the temperature within the pressure smoking compartment 14 (FIG. 1) can be regulated by regulating the fire in the fire compartment 12 (FIG. 1).
The apparatus described by Davis Jr. also limits the user to a process which results in the transfer of heat as well as smoke filled air by a source of pressurized air 77 (FIG. 1) into the pressure smoking compartment 14 (FIG. 1) which causes a complete or partial cooking of the food within the pressure smoking compartment 14 (FIG. 1) during the food smoking process, and there is nothing in the claims put forth by Davis Jr. that would suggest this complete or partial cooking is not intended to be part of the smoking process. Furthermore there is nothing that Davis Jr. teaches that would suggest that his apparatus was intended to accomplish, or even could accomplish, the complete saturation of food with smoke without ever subjecting the food to heat or forced air, thus leaving the food essentially unaffected by either, and in a state of being fully saturated with smoke flavor yet capable of being returned to refrigeration with smoke saturation being the only change affected or, of being cooked by any method desired such as: frying, baking, grilling, microwaving, steaming, etc. after the smoke saturation process has occurred.
Another limitation of the apparatus described by Davis Jr. is the necessity of having three separate compartments, one being the fire compartment 12 (FIG. 1) where fuel is burned to generate the smoke, a separate pressure smoking compartment 14 (FIG. 1) in thermal communication with the fire compartment 12 (FIG. 1) and a separate vacuum smoking compartment 16 (FIG. 1) also in direct thermal communication with the fire compartment 12 (FIG. 1) and the arrangement of the three compartments makes it necessary that the apparatus be used either: as a pressurized smoker and cooker; or be used as a device that smokes and cooks or cures food in a partial vacuum.
Another limitation of the invention described by Davis Jr. is the requirement for the continuous operation of a vacuum pump 93 (FIG. 1) in order to create a partial vacuum in the vacuum smoking compartment 16 (FIG. 1) and also requires a vacuum pump filter 92 (FIG. 1) in order to protect the vacuum pump 93 (FIG. 1) as it continuously removes air from the vacuum smoking compartment 16 (FIG. 1).
Another limitation of the apparatus described by Davis Jr. teaches the use of separate components for the processes of partial vacuum creation and air compression as can be seen in (FIG. 1) illustrating the preferred embodiment of the apparatus and showing the vacuum pump 93 situated on one side of the preferred embodiment of the apparatus (FIG. 1) and the source of pressurized air 77 on the opposing side of the preferred embodiment of the apparatus (FIG. 1).
Davis Jr. also teaches the capability for expedited removal of moisture from the food in his apparatus resulting from the exposure to pressurized and heated smoke from the fire compartment 12 (FIG. 1) or from continuous exposure to the partial vacuum created in the vacuum smoking compartment 16 (FIG. 1). While there can be no doubt that exposure to these processes would have this effect, it is by no means certain that such a drying effect would be universally desirable and there is no claim or indication by Davis Jr. that his invention could operate without causing a removal of moister from the food being smoke treated.
Although others such as Davis Jr., Hamilton et all, and Jacobson (U.S. Pat. No. 4,130,052) have disclosed earlier inventions aimed at improving the process of smoking and cooking certain foods; to date, there is nothing in the art which seriously departs from the requirement to utilize sizable amounts of smoke producing fuel, and the need to subject the food to be smoked to heat (whether produced by the smoke producing fire or a separate source of heat) for a considerable amount of time and furthermore, there is nothing in the art to date which contemplates the possibility of a process for saturating a food product with real smoke without significantly altering the temperature or moisture content of the food product.
The greatest shortcoming of all of the apparatus described in the art until now has been the considerable inefficiency of time and material and the difficulty of achieving significant precision in the essential process of generating smoke and infusing the food with smoke, and there is virtually nothing in the art which effectively addresses the possibility of infusing a food product with real smoke saturation without significantly altering other characteristics of the food product in ways which may or may not be desirable.
Given the current limitations in the art cited above, it is evident that there is a need in the art for a smoker apparatus that:
1. Departs from the idea that the burning of wood or other material to produce smoke, and the cooking of the food have to be either part of the same process; or the smoking of the food has to be done over a prolonged period of time so as to affect a simultaneous slow cooking or curing of the food.
2. Departs from the need for any specialized door compression device for the compartment or chamber used as a means for the production of smoke such as that taught by Davis Jr. (FIG. 5) in his drawings, but instead can operate with a simple flush fitting door that would simply cut off the flow of air when tightly closed allows for the production of just enough smoke to saturate the food, thereby requiring very small amounts of material to be burned to produce the smoke, very small amounts of heat to be produced, and little or no transfer of heat to the food to be smoked.
3. Allows for the production of just enough smoke to saturate the food, thereby requiring very small amounts of material to be burned to produce the smoke, very small amounts of heat to be produced, and little or no transfer of heat to the food to be smoked.
4. Can be done over a very short period of time and using vacuum/compression components that have no exposure to heat or harmful smoke while providing the means to fully and deeply saturate the food with the flavor of real smoke in a matter of minutes.
5. Provides the means for separating and isolating the smoke, which is the desired source of flavor to be imparted unto a food substance, from the flame and heat source created to produce the smoke in a manner which the restricts the alteration of the food substance to that affected by exposure to the smoke alone with the effect of the heat and flame used to generate the smoke being negligible or none at all.
6. Provides for the rapid creation of a partial vacuum in a sealed chamber containing a food product whereby smoke saturated air can be transferred from a small ignition source in an adjacent chamber, and this is accomplished with negligible thermal transfer thus allowing for the subsequent compression of the smoke saturated air in the sealed chamber containing the food product which then becomes saturated with smoke while undergoing no significant change in temperature.
7. Allows the vacuum and compression processes described above to take place within a single chamber or compartment which can be sealed in such a manner that allows for compression and partial vacuum creation using any one of several simple rubber gasket sealing means long established in the art.
8. Provides the means for the saturation of a food product with real smoke and leaves that food product in an otherwise unaffected state such that it can be later cooked in any manner desired while retaining the effect of smoke flavoring.
9. Provides the means for the saturation of a food with real smoke in such a way that most or all of the smoke produced is absorbed by the food being treated by the smoke, and as a result there is no requirement in the process for the smoke to be filtered in any way during the smoking process or after the smoking process is complete.
While Davis Jr., Hamilton et al, and others have taught various means for incorporating schemes for pressurization and/or partial vacuum creation into the process of smoking and/or cooking food, none of their inventions to accomplish these goals could be reasonably modified to accomplish the needs in the art described above and there is nothing in their descriptions, drawings, or claims to indicate that any of them had any intentions of teaching these things or that it would have been obvious to them to do so.